‘Divergent’ does not reflect book, leaving viewers disappointed

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The first thing I’m going to say is that if you loved the book and are a dedicated reader expecting the movie to reflect its paper counterpart, you will be disappointed with Neil Burger’s adaptation, and I would suggest saving your money until it’s released to Redbox.

As with any popular bandwagon book now a day, it was only a matter of time before “Divergent” hit the big screens.The heroine, Tris, discovers she fits into more than of these factions and is branded Divergent. She quickly learns Divergents are extremely dangerous to the fragile structure her society maintains as they do not conform easily and pose a threat to the tyranny ruling faction, the intelligent. Tris leaves her faction, the selfless, in the hope of finding her true place of belonging only to endure a grueling initiation process and to be thrown into the midst of the political overthrow of her home faction, which she feels responsible for resolving.

One redeeming factor of this movie is the almost unknown cast featuring Shailene Woodley and Theo James, who play Tris and Four respectively. The only real big name in the movie is Jeanine, played by Kate Winslet. However, the characters seemed watered down in comparison to the book’s portrayal. Many of the characters seemed much less intense than in the book.

I feel that some of the differences were unnecessary and took away from character development. Some events are altered slightly to make the heroine of the story the true hero, even if the book wasn’t originally written that way.

The same stands true for the many events left out of the movie to appeal to a younger and larger demographic. Some of the more gruesome scenes were neglected in the movie to try to keep the PG-13 rating. I feel that some of these fictional occurrences were important to emphasize the level of immediate danger and fear the characters endured through during their time as brave initiates..

My biggest annoyance with this movie was the director’s choice to visually add more villainous scenes at the cost of the true story’s words.

If you read the book and loved it, as I did, I feel you will be disappointed with this cinematic adaptation. On the other hand, if you are naïve to the plot and characters of the story, I think this movie can be quite enjoyable.